Disposable absorbent articles, such as diapers, are well known in the art. Disposable absorbent articles retain and absorb body exudates, such as urine and fecal material deposited thereon.
Significant advances have been made in the art relative to absorbing and retaining urine deposits. For example, disposable absorbent articles seldom leak and may be relatively thin due to the incorporation of absorbent gelling materials. However, fewer attempts have been made in the art to handle deposits of fecal material in disposable absorbent articles. Fecal material has the undesirable proclivity of smearing onto the wearer's skin, causing epidermal irritation and complicating the task of cleaning the wearer when the soiled diaper or other disposable absorbent article is removed.
To overcome this problem, certain attempts have been made in the art to isolate the fecal material from the skin of the wearer. Such attempts generally provide a void or hole into which the fecal material is deposited and retained. Examples of such attempts are found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,662,877 issued May 5, 1987, to Williams; U.S. Pat. No. 4,892,536 issued Jan. 9, 1990, to DesMarais et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,968,312 issued Nov. 6, 1990, to Khan; U.S. Pat. No. 4,990,147 issued Feb. 5, 1991, to Freeland; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,062,840 issued Nov. 5, 1991, to Holt et al.
Attempts have also been made to add a transverse partition to the diaper. The transverse partition limits the migration of fecal material to the front portion of the diaper in which the fecal material is deposited. In some embodiments, the transverse partition is joined with the barrier leg cuffs to ensure containment of fecal material. However, joining a transverse partition to the barrier leg cuffs may hold the cuffs generally over the core and thus reduce the effective distance between the cuffs when in use. Thus, it has been found to be advantageous to provide barrier leg cuffs which are wider in the region of the transverse partition and more narrow in the front and rear waist regions. This configuration provides improved isolation of fecal material without adversely affecting the containment benefits provided by the leg cuffs.
Further, although transverse partition structures have been found to work well as a barrier to limit fecal material migration, they are very difficult to add during high speed manufacture of a diaper. Because transverse partitions generally extend in the cross-machine direction on existing diaper manufacturing lines, the steps necessary to attach the transverse partitions tend to be very complex. Generally, manufacture of a diaper involves multiple operations, virtually all of which occur to a moving web or discrete diaper at very high speeds. Thus, any increase in the number or complexity of operations needed to complete the disposable article adds to the cost. Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide a method for joining the transverse partition to diaper which is simple and can be done at relatively high speeds.
Therefore, it is an object of this invention to provide a disposable absorbent article having a transverse partition which limits the migration of fecal material within the disposable absorbent article.
It is further an object of this invention to provide a disposable absorbent article having a partition which is readily attachable to upstanding longitudinally oriented barrier leg cuffs.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide a uniform width barrier leg cuff material, yet also, by selectively activating the material, provide barrier leg cuffs which are wider in the region of the transverse partition and more narrow in the front and rear waist regions such that the transverse partition does not adversely affect the containment characteristics of the leg cuffs.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a diaper having a transverse partition which is attached to the upstanding barrier leg cuffs in the commercial manufacturing processes.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide a method of making a disposable absorbent articles having barrier leg cuffs which are wider in the region of the transverse partition and more narrow in the front and rear waist regions such that the transverse partition is held in position by the barrier leg cuffs at the crotch and yet sufficiently removed from the loading zones so as to not adversely affect the containment characteristics of the leg cuffs.